Love Can Make You do Strange Things
by matsaidwelcome
Summary: From the POV of Carl after Negan does what he does to our group of survivors. spoilers from 7.01 . Carl just watched two of his family members get beaten to death and has no idea where they've taken his father. This is what Carl thinks and does during 7.01 when the camera is off and on him.


Carl watched as Negan stepped back from Glenn; the man he thought of as an older brother, an uncle, and a friend. The gore that was left was seeping into the ground, Carl knew if they stayed there long enough walkers would show up to feast on the remains.

Negan was talking but Carl couldn't understand, he could only think about were all the time he spent with Glenn. How much he had taught him and helped him. Carl even remembers asking how to wrap a present he had gotten for Maggie.

Suddenly Carl's attention snapped back to the present and he saw the scene in front of him; Rick was being dragged away from the group and his heart leapt to his throat. No. No, he couldn't lose his dad not after what just happened. Not after Abraham. Not after Glenn.

Negan pulled Rick into the RV and closed the door. They waited there for a little while before leaving, taking Carl's heart with them. As the RV turned away from sight Carl started to breathe again and looked around at the people who were left. His father was gone but the rest of the group was still here. He had to think of something; his father would.

Everyone was in shock. Carl looked at each person in turn to see what condition they were in. Michonne had her hair covering her face so Carl couldn't tell what she was thinking. Rosita had fallen from her knees to her hip staring at nothing. Sasha was still tall on her knees her fist clenched in front of her thighs. Maggie was crying on the ground, shaking. Eugene silently sobbing to his left. The look in Aaron's eyes were completely blank showing no emotion at all as to what just happened. Daryl was making feral noises but Carl didn't linger too long on him.

Carl could tell with everything that just happened they weren't going anywhere fast. Shifting his weight, he tried to regain feeling in his feet from sitting on his legs for so long but one of the men behind him didn't appreciate that. Taking a step up to Carl the man brought his gun up and smacked the handle across the back of his head.

Falling onto his shoulder Carl stays down for a few seconds. He lifts his hand and places it gently on his face taking one more second before he sits up and tries to ignore the throbbing in his head.

The group who were focused enough in reality gasped, that is, Sasha and Michonne gasped Daryl looked in Carl's direction. The two women were about to stand when the man who pistol whipped Carl spoke.

"Anyone who even thinks 'bout movin' gits beat." The tone of the man settled Michonne and Sasha back to their original positions. Carl could barely hear what the man said his ears were ringing so much. Trying to clear the vision in his one good eye was taking longer than he hoped. As Carl's vision came back he realized no one was going to be moving anytime soon.

The man who hit Carl was quietly talking to the other men around him. He could hear the comments they were making about the women in their group. They all really like Rosita.

"When Negan gits back we can ask if we can have the Latin one."

"Ha, she's the prettiest. No way he'd give her to us." The other man talking placed his hand on his pants and rubs up and down.

"Yeah…Maybe he'd let us take the black one."

"Which one?"

"The one with the hair up. I don't want to have to pull that shit up while I'm busy."

"Yeah, all we got to do is ask permission. As if that actually counts."

Carl was listening to this and found himself becoming increasingly tense with rage. He sat on his legs and didn't move but could feel the tension coming off the women in the group. It reminded him of when Maggie and Glenn came back after the Governor and Carl over heard one of their conversations.

The talking continued so Carl tried to think of something else. Taking a deep breath he tried to calm himself down. He was here and he had people he needed to protect. Still breathing Carl relaxed his hands and closed his eye.

Sitting on his legs, his feet went from numb to pins and needles to full pain. Carl still had his eyes closed and tuning out the vulgar conversation behind him when Negan finally came back. If Carl could remember how long an hour was he would have said it was just under two.

The moment he heard the RV roll up Carl felt his heart jump. He didn't know what he was going to see, whether his father was alive or dead but at least something was happening. He didn't have to wait and sit on his legs any longer.

The door opened and out came Negan. Dragging Rick next to him like a dog. Rick is alive and that was almost enough for Carl to stand and fight then and there.

"Let me ask you something, Rick - do you even know what that little trip was about?" Negan looked at Rick with glee. He was enjoying himself. "Speak when you're spoken to!"

"Okay." Rick answers hoarsely. Carl can feel the humiliation and trepidation in his father's voice as he spoke to Negan. His father's will to fight though didn't seem to be there as much as Carl's.

"Okay. That trip was about the way that you looked at me. I wanted to change that. I wanted you to understand. But you're still looking at me the same damn way like I shit in your scrambled eggs, and that's not gonna work. So do I give you another chance?"

The look in his father's eyes makes Carl squeeze his hands on top of his legs glad his nails were too short to cut him. It wasn't the look Negan wanted to see.

"Yes. Yes."

"Okay, alright. And here it is - the grand-prize game. What you do next will decide whether your crap day becomes everyone's last crap day or just another crap day. Get some guns to the back of their heads. Good." Putting his hand up to his face he continues to speak "Now level with their noses, so if you have to fire it'll be a real mess." The men move behind the group quickly and level their guns.

Negan finishes his speech and looks around the group. When his eyes land on Carl a chill rolls down his spine. This man was bad. Not like Terminus bad, not like the Governor bad, not even like the Wolfs bad. This man was evil. Looking at Carl he didn't think there was a difference between Negan and the walkers, wanting only one thing. He wants to see fear, he wants to see the fear he creates; right before he kills you.

"Kid right here." The entire group stiffens. Carl can feel the blood drain from his face as he looks from Negan to his father. He can only guess what he's going to do to him.

"Kid now." Carl stood. It took a few moments for his legs to work for him but he got up and made his way to Negan ignoring the hurricane in his stomach. He was not going to let anyone die because of him.

"You a southpaw?" Negan asks while taking his belt off.

"Am I a what?" Not knowing exactly what a southpaw was he thought it best to ask instead of answering. He also wanted to buy some time to think of a plan to get him, his father and the rest of the group out.

"You a lefty?"

"No." Carl stated, voice breaking as he started to figure out what Negan wanted. He had seen it done to other people. Negan wanted to cut his arm off. The chill that ran down his spine this time didn't stop at the small of his back but kept going and spread through his body. His chest hurt. It was getting hard for him to breathe.

"Good. That hurt?" Negan tightens the belt making Carl squint in pain but doesn't let him see it.

"No." Carl says deadpan without thinking about it he answers.

"Should. It's supposed to. All right. Get down on the ground, kid, next to Daddy. Spread them wings." Taking Carl's hat off Negan motions for Carl to lay down. Without his hat on he suddenly feels more naked than he ever has before.

Laying down with his face pushed into the ground Negan's hand pushes on his shoulder blades forcing him the rest of the way down. The hand that forced Carl down brought him back to a cold black night where he knew then and there he was a monster. His feet twitching and shrieking in pain as the blood returns to them he tries but fails to not think about that night. At the time Carl didn't know exactly what the claimers had wanted with him and Michonne. He knew "having" someone wasn't good and it would probably hurt, so he struggled his hardest to get away but he couldn't do it by himself. His father saved him that night.

Negan caught the pen that was thrown and pulled the cap off with his mouth. Carl had missed the discussion where Negan asked for the pen but he couldn't get the parallel of the large man from before to the large man now drawing a line across his arm now out of his head. Negan said something about how this was going to be cold but Carl couldn't hear it.

Never had Carl wanted his dad to do what he did to the claimers again. But right then he wanted nothing more than to scream for help and wait for his dad to save him. He was so scared.

The conversation went on above him, Rick so overcome he was rocking back and forth, pleading with Negan. It was too much for him to handle. He looked away. He looked down at the gravel scratching his face. The detail in which he could see the rocks was fascinating. Carl had always been interested in rocks, if the world hadn't ended he thought he would have liked to go to college and study geology.

"-r ax cut your son's left arm off, right on that line. Now, I know - I know. You're gonna have to process that for a second. That makes sense. Still, though, I'm gonna need you to do it, or all these people are gonna die. Then Carl dies, then the people back home die and then you, eventually. I'm gonna keep you breathing for a few years, just so you can stew on it."

Rick was shaking his head, not believing this could be happening. Rick was speaking to Negan, or maybe just crying, Carl couldn't understand it anyway. He thought maybe his dad said 'no, not him, take me' but he couldn't tell.

"You -You don't have to do this. We understand. We understand." Michonne breathed, pleading, with Negan forcing Carl back to reality. Never before had he heard her beg. Never seen her so scared, so weak. It made him hate himself when her voice broke.

"You understand. Yeah. I'm not sure that Rick does." Said Negan, smiling the whole time. "I'm gonna need a clean cut right there on that line. Now, I know this is a screwed-up thing to ask, but it's gonna have to be like a salami slice - nothing messy, clean, 45 degrees - give us something to fold over." The last bit was nauseating. The first time he had seen a human bone, a bloody stump that used to be a leg was when Hershel came back from the first scout in the prison.

Negan was speaking to Rick but Carl didn't know if his father understood any of the horrible things that Negan was saying. He kept looking from Negan to Carl as if asking him what to do. Asking him if this was real. If it would be okay to cut his son's arm off. Looking at Carl as if in a dream.

"Are you gonna make me count? Okay, Rick. You win. I am counting. 3."

Negan spoke to Carl's father, threatening him if Rick didn't do what he asked. It was hard for Carl to look at. He tried to keep his vision focused on anything but Rick. But his father had started to cry and beg and blubber; he couldn't look away.

"Please! Please. It can be me. Please!"

It was like looking at Judith when she was just a few months old. She would blow bubbles and Carl would coo at her and she'd laugh. He lived for the moments where his little sister laughed when he thought her life wouldn't be short and tragic. Now he couldn't even think about it. His father, the man who woke up from a coma, traveled from their home town to find him and his mother, saved Carl and the rest of the group too many times to count. His father, who nursed him back to health after Ron, was falling apart. And Carl couldn't do anything.

He tried to think of something else. Anything. Not the fact that he was not only going to have one eye but also only one hand. He would never be able to protect Judith like this.

What if he died?

The thought calmed him. He wouldn't have to live in this world anymore. Wouldn't have to be scared. Wouldn't have to protect anybody. Wouldn't be a disappointment to his father.

He though back to when he was at Hershel's farm, after Sophia had been found and telling Carol she was stupid for believing in heaven. But what if it was real? What if he could see his mother? He could see Shane. Dale. Sophia. T-dog. Tyreese. Glenn, now too. It felt good. He realizes why Carol so desperately wants to believe in something after death. His vision clearing he looked ahead of him to Michonne recalling the conversation they had not too long ago.

"2!"

Carl met Michonne at the prison. She was the tall woman who walked up to their prison with walker guts covering her front, baby formula beside her, and a gunshot wound. Michonne was more than a friend to Carl. He didn't know what but she was more. She was family. If he died, if he bled out from the wound he wouldn't have to worry about coming back as something else. She promised.

"Please, don't do –"

When the prison was being attacked by the Governor the first time Carl was sent away with Hershel, Beth and Judith. He had wanted to stay and fight. He wanted to protect his remaining family. He wanted to kill the enemy. How wrong he was.

When he spotted the boy who had run away from the Governor he saw a person who was the enemy. A person he could blame for all the death and misery he had gone through. He counted down from three in his head and fired. Hershel had never looked at him in more disappointment then that day.

Carl could hear the brokenness in his father's voice as he spoke those words. Negan was laughing, not having any of Rick's disgusting pleading. The blubbering, just like Judith, but not making anyone happy.

"This is it."

Bracing himself Carl swallowed the last lump in his throat and turned his head the farthest it would go with his cheek digging into the gravel and looked in his father's eyes before speaking.

"Dad just do it." His voice caught in his throat and his lips were trembling but he thought of Sophia and spoke again. "Just do it."

The look on Rick's face. His eyes widening to saucers and his breathe coming in short fast burst. Rick placed one hand on Carl's the other on the ax. When the sickness broke out in the prison and Rick had warned Carl not to hug him, Carl ignored that and ran right up to him. He wasn't going to let something like an illness stop him from touching his father. Without meaning to twitches at his father's touch.

Struggling in his father's grip he closes his eye and waits. Screaming, Rick raises the ax above his head.

"Rick." Negan steps up to Rick. Dropping the ax and letting Carl's arm go his father turns to face their attacker. "You answer to me. You provide for me. You belong to me. Right? Speak when you're spoken to! You answer to me. You provide for me."

"Provide for you." Rick is still sobbing.

"You belong to me, right?! Negan screamed so loud in Rick's face it hurt Carl's facing ear.

"Right."

"Right. That is the look I wanted to see." Carl kept his eye closed. He couldn't bring himself to look at his father. He knew that was wrong. He told his father to do it. To cut his arm off. But still, a small part of him wished he could believe his father was still the man who could do anything. Believing someone's father could do anything was what every kid thought. To bad the world ended.

Carl still kept his eye closed while Negan talks to Rick and the group. The only time he opened his eye was when Negan said he wanted Daryl. Snapping his eye open he stares at his father hoping, hoping he had a plan.

He wasn't sure how he felt about Daryl right now but that didn't matter. This was the man who's been there since the beginning. He cared for Judith. Named her little ass kicker. His father named him his brother. Daryl was going to be hurt and Carl didn't want any more of his family to be taken from him today.

They loaded Daryl into the truck he had come from, backing him into the corner like he was some kind of trapped animal. Maggie was crying somewhere he couldn't quite see.

Negan began talking to Rick again about Daryl and what he would do if Rick disobeyed again. The stench of his sweat came wafting down to Carl as Negan squatted next to Rick. The odor was pungent. It was like his father's when they were on the road for weeks on end and the sweat had left white stains on his shirt. But it was different somehow, more caustic.

"Ahh! Welcome to a brand-new beginning, you sorry shits! I'm gonna leave you a truck. Keep it. Use it to cart all the crap you're gonna find me. We'll be back for our first offering in one week. Until then ta-ta."

Throwing the ax that nearly took Carl's arm Negan walked off.

The rest of Negan's group began to leave. They gathered in the trucks they came in not even bothering a glance at the traumatized people they were leaving behind. It only took a few minutes for everyone who had surrounded them to disappear. Carl turned over and sat up bringing one knee up he placed his arm there, the arm that was nearly taken from him and stared at it.

"Maggie. Maggie. Maggie you need to sit down. Maggie." Rick's voice broke the silence that had fallen over the group. Carl knew his father loved Maggie like a daughter. He would try everything in his power to help her stay alive.

Carl couldn't tell if she said no or was just panting and moaning at the same time and actually didn't speak any words. His father kept walking towards her.

"We need to get you to the Hilltop."

"You need to go get ready." Panting hard the words came out hoarse and choppy but Carl could hear the conviction behind them.

"For what?"

"To fight them."

Carl looks over at this point. Had she not just seen what happened? What Negan did to Abraham? What he did to Glenn? Carl's father? No, Maggie couldn't actually want to go fight Negan right now. Everyone was weak, hungry, and tired. But Carl knew, love did strange things to people.

Thinking back to when his mother died, how Rick took it. How he left. Running around in the tombs killing anything he could get his hands on. Almost killed Glenn. His father tried to keep it from him but Carl saw. He could see Rick breaking, falling apart mentally. He didn't know what to call it but heard Beth and Hershel talking about it once. Rick was having a break from reality. The love he lost was too much; and Carl just wasn't enough to keep his father sane.

"They have Daryl. They have an army. We would die - all of us."

"Go home." Maggie finally panted out. "Take everybody with you. I can get there by myself."

"You can barely stand up." Rick reaches for Maggie but she pulls away. Carl wonders if his touch scares her as much as it did him.

"I need to go. You need to go to Alexandria." The words gradually became louder. Then she was panting, her next words a whisper. "You were out - out here for me."

"We still are." Maggie starts crying in earnest now. Aaron and Michonne stand and take deep breathes trying to control their own emotions while watching Maggie lose hers.

"I can make it now. I need you to go back. I can't have you out here. I can't have you all out here anymore. I need you to go back." Carl is still looking at Maggie when she finally gets those words out. Sighing he closes his eye. Carl knows what she's thinking.

He's dead because of me.

Carl stands.

"Maggie we're not letting you go. Okay?" Michonne spoke with the voice she used with Carl when he told her he thought he was a monster.

"You have to."

"It's not gonna happen." Rick said softly. Michonne and Rick both trying to get their family back together.

As Maggie started crying again Sasha stood up and walked straight to Maggie.

"I'm taking her. I'm gonna get her there. I'm gonna keep her safe." She places her hand on Maggie's elbow and gives a little squeeze. "I'm not giving you a choice." Sasha may be saying she, as if she's talking to the group, but it's for Maggie. Sasha is telling her, 'me too'. We will get there together. Carl remembers how bad Maggie and Sasha took the death of their last living blood relative. The bond between the two hasn't weakened at all, it's only gotten stronger.

"I'm taking him with me." Maggie nods as she steps forward almost falling on top of what was Glenn. Kneeling down she seems to have found a new wave of energy as the tears start again. Sasha steps back and makes her way to Rosita and Abraham.

Sasha speaks and looks Rosita straight in the eyes, communicating the lost love between the two women. Rosita looks away and takes a deep breath before looking to Sasha again. She nods.

Eugene comes over to Sasha and Rosita. He stands behind Abraham Sasha looking up at him while he crouches and grabs Abraham's legs. He waits. Rosita shakes her head, wipes her eyes and gets in a position to carry Abraham to the RV and to home.

Carl picks up his hat and walks slowly towards Maggie. He wants to help her, he really does. But going closer to Glenn, to his friend he can smell the stench of a newly dead person and it stops him in his tracks. Aaron doesn't seem to mind, of course he didn't know Glenn like Carl did.

But he treks on.

"Please. We need to help you." Aaron crouches behind Maggie and puts his hand on her back. Trying to comfort a person who just lost their husband. Carl sees his father walking around to help Maggie and he suddenly can't take it anymore.

Carl swallows the lump in his throat and comes up behind Maggie too. What good is he if he can't even comfort Maggie.

"I got it. I got it." Carl whispers and places a hand on Maggie's shoulder. He can take Maggie and help her. He needs to do this. His family has gotten so much smaller and this is the one way he can help Maggie right now.

"No. No" The whisper is almost inaudible but Rick seems to hear it

"Pl- Pl- Please let us. He- He's our family, t- He's our family, too." Rick knows that Maggie wants to hold Glenn, want to be able to take him back to Alexandria herself, with her own power. For her husband. But she relents. She looks at Glenn one last time before she sits back and lets the rest of her family help her.

Maggie stands but immediately falls into Carl's arms.

The last time Maggie hugged him it was at the prison after Judith was born and his father was wondering outside chasing ghosts. Carl was crying by himself in a corner of the yard. She sat beside him and waited a moment but then put her arm around his shoulder. Carl leaned into it wrapping both arms around her waist. He pushed his face into her chest and started sobbing so hard he knew he was soaking Maggie's shirt and getting snot all over it. But she didn't care. She just held him and rubbed his back and shhhed him.

He was so small then he fit inside her arms so well. When did he get big enough to hold her?

The embrace is not nearly long enough for Carl but he has to help lift Glenn. Maggie lets go and steps back allowing Carl to step forward and kneel next to her husband. He looks at the back of Glenn's head and immediately looks away. He doesn't want to see what's left of him; he only wants to remember his smiling face.

Helping his father and Aaron they lift Glenn and walk backwards to the RV. Carl tries to think of nothing else but seeing Judith again. Seeing his little sister always made whatever the world threw at him okay. He hopes it will be the same now but he has his doubts even Judith won't be able to make him happy.

Then he sees it. As he carries Glenn away he glances at Maggie. The look in Maggie's eyes. The power he sees there. And he knows.

Fight, that's what Maggie wanted. And Carl couldn't agree more. Seeing what's happened in the last 24 hours, how could anyone not want to fight.

Glenn was the one to convince everyone to stay and fight for the prison. Carl wanted to be the one to stand and fight for Alexandria. To fight for his family.

So he did.


End file.
